Backcountry Camping

This simply had me in stitches from the Goat – cheers Keith

Snowdon 7 Route challenge

We get a fair amount of requests in to the office for assistance for charity but one in particular caught our eye this week from Fire-fighter Neil Oakley out there with the West Midlands Fire Brigade. He will be climbing all 7 routes up and down Snowdon back to back this weekend for four seperate charities.

We think he’s ace which is why we are sponsoring him. If you fancy doing the same we would heartily recommend doing so, as what he is doing is pretty darn full on and he is doing it for four separate charities. They are Help for heroes , Great Ormond Street Hospital, Birmingham Childrens Hospital and Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust.

Good luck for the weekend mate!

Video Live!

Well after rather a lot of delay – our video has finally gone live! We have about 15 that have gone up on the site to start off with and altogether we are pretty pleased with the result. From my perspective it’s pretty embarrasing to see yourself on screen and slightly disconcerting when everyone was watching them in the office and my voice was coming from 5 PC’s at the same time! I am though really pleased with what they will do which is give people more information and most importantly the chance to see them in the flesh.

So far we have videos for the Resolve jacket, Burma boots, Borneo boots, Cornice jacket, Ogre Jacket, RG1 Jacket, Kongur Jacket, Hedgehog XCR trainers, Hedgehog Mid XCR and Keen Newport Sandals

We are really keen to get feedback on these so fire away with any comments / suggestions and products to coverand we’ll do our best to get them in the next batch!

I love the smell of shiny new gear in the morning…. Mammut’s Extreme Cho – Oyu

Gear. Just the word makes me start to salivate with anticipation especially when a seriously nice piece of kit heads in to the office. There’s not much that makes us stop in our tracks these days but one piece of kit from Mammut has got the whole office up and cooing over it like a kid at his first fireworks display.

So what’s got the collective at Webtogs drooling like lunatics? Well it’s the arrival of Mammut’s Extreme Cho-Oyu jacket. Outdoors Magic previewed it earlier this year and we also saw it at ISPO , but the chance to check it out in the flesh and try on and wander about has given us some great initial impressions. So much so that our Tech Director started getting awfully excited and demanded he tried it on then and there…

The main story is the new Schoeller C Change climatic fabric. It’s a dynamic membrane that opens on the users generated warmth to release more heat and closes up again when cool. Cut wise it is a short Alpine fit, on the snug side (I usually take a medium and ended up with a large) and is in Mammut’s classic Orange and blue which frankly looks the Cat’s pyjamas. Feel wise is similar to other membrane fabrics, with perhaps a slightly more malleable and gentle texture. The hood is decent, though lacks a wire or stiffened peak and the articulation is great – this is going to be a fantastic jacket for any sort of climbing and scrambling. I really liked the breathable chin guard under the hood as well.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this performs out on the hill but initial impressions are of a great piece of kit.

Webtogs Carbon Neutral Green Delivery and InternetRetailing magazine

One of the indsutry’s best magazines Internet Retailing, sent out their newsletter today with an interesting piece on how going green could be a win:win for recession hit retailers. Not only is buying online a better, greener way of shopping, but if retailers get it right – then can help to save the environment by offsetting the carbon from the deliveries too.

Here at Webtogs we’ve been offering Carbon Neutral delivery ever since we started and feel very strongly about giving something back to the environment and trying to protect it. 95%+ of all our customers are happy to contribute their 25p on top of our 25p – which is always great to see.

Screenshot of newsletter below: (just click it to see it in full)

Leave the kids at home

Well here we are on a Tuesday with slightly tired legs after a full weekend yomping away. Most of you will know we have a small son, but as we were staying at the outlaws, we were able to call on some excellent baby sitting services and for the first time in a number of years, my wife and I had a decent yomp together. Bliss

As my wife comes from the Peaks we have done quite a bit of the dark peak so we went for a lesser known path. Starting off in Hathersage at the Plough we started off gently heading up High Low towards Abney and back around to Hathersage with views out to Mam Tor and Kinder. I love my son to bits but it was a great day as BC (before children) all our spare time was spent heading to the hills. The Peaks I find a little too busy sometimes but we were really pleased with this route only coming across the one group of walkers heading the other way.

Then it was back for a pint before heading for a stroll the following day along the old Midland railway track from Bakewell in sun, sleet and hail. All in all a weekend we get too little of these days, so we are already planning to head back up when we can.